RETAIL FAIL: Copycat T-shirts pulled off shelves of chain store Glue

UPDATE 4:25PM: URBAN clothing chain store Glue have apologised to a young Sydney fashion designer for stocking a shirt that blatantly plagiarised his work.

Warwick Levy of label Lonely Kids Club said Glue had told him their buyers had been unaware the design, above, had been taken from someone else.

UPDATE 2:45PM: The director of the fashion label accused of blatantly plagiarising and selling a T-shirt design says he has no idea how it happened.

Earlier today, major urban fashion chain Glue told news.com.au it was pulling a T-shirt with a remarkable resemblance to one designed by a young Sydney designer from every one of its stores.

"It's just come a surprise to us," JXcess director Jason Seidl told news.com.au. "I guess we're just not sure about how it went through our due dilligence process."

EARLIER:

Youth clothing chain Glue is pulling a T-shirt from all their stores after a designer accused them of stocking a range blatantly plagiarising his work.

Warwick Levy, 23, who runs a small boutique T-shirt brand called Lonely Kids Club, alleged to news.com.au that urban fashion brand JXcess had copied his T-Shirt design (above right) and sold it exclusively to Glue.

"It's really upsetting," he said. "We put so much passion and energy into something and a bigger brand just duplicates it and make a lot more money as a result."

Mr Levy said he and artist Sarah Adamson had released a T-shirt featuring a wonky triangle with the word "OVERRATED" in it in October last year. The design sold out.

"It was a good range, everything was great," Mr Levy said, but JXcess released their own T-shirt of a similar design with the word "OVERKILL" through Glue just weeks ago. Glue has 28 stores nationwide, according to the chain's website.

Mr Levy said it was definitely not a coincidence.

SEE THE PICTURES ABOVE

"I don't mind if someone borrows my ideas. But this is essentially the exact same design. "

The CFO of Gluestore, Scott Luckett, contacted News.com.au to express his shock when we raised the allegations this morning.

"It came as a complete surprise for us," the CFO of Gluestore, Scott Luckett told news.com.au.

"We've been in touch with JXcess. For the moment, we're going to pull all our stock from our stores and online.

"At the end of the day we don't know who has plagiarised who at this point and we're talking to our supplier about it."

Mr Levy said had released his T-shirt eight months before JXcess's design. He said he was overjoyed with the news.

"It just sets such a precedent for how big brands deal with little ones."

The Gluestore CFO, Mr Luckett, told news.com.au he would get in touch with Lonely Kids Club.

Mr Luckett said they had contacted JXcess and the brand were looking into it.

Calls to the phone number on JXcess's website rang out and they have yet to respond to an email request for comment.

News.com.au's Privacy Policy includes important information about our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information (including to provide you with targeted content and advertising based on your online activities). It explains that if you do not provide us with information we have requested from you, we may not be able to provide you with the goods and services you require. It also explains how you can access or seek correction of your personal information, how you can complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles and how we will deal with a complaint of that nature.